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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Remember back in November, when I was waxing poetic about silhouettes? And how I was talking a big game about how I was going to try making them for my husband and myself ("A great project for this weekend", I think I said)? Well, half a year later I finally got around to it, and it turns out it's so much fun. In fact, I've become obsessed, and want to do a whole wall featuring the profiles of all of our favorite people, animals and things.

Kind of like this gorgeousness from Apartment Therapy: And, yes, silhouettes will be sized according to how important the subject is to us. Watch out, because I'm totally in love with those tiny ones.

There are two ways to make them: high-tech and low-tech. The high-tech way is to open the photo in Adobe Illustrator and outline the profile using the pen tool (on a separate layer). Fill with black, and delete the original photo.

The low-tech way is as follows:

1. Take a photo of your subject's profile with a digital camera. Here is mine:

2. Print out the photo with the size that you want the head to be. Then, use a piece of tracing paper and a pencil to draw the outline. You can chisel your chin or clean up a messy bun (like I did) a little if you want, but don't give yourself a full silhouette rhinoplasty or else you won't end up looking like you.3. Use carbon paper to copy the silhouette on to a black piece of paper (You can get it from Kate's Paperie or Paper Source, but I just got mine at Staples). Carefully cut out the silhouette using nail scissors and an Xacto blade.4. Mount the silhouette on white (or patterned, if you want) paper. Voila.

I'm going to buy some cheap oval and square frames and and spray paint them glossy back and gold for my display. I'll post pictures once it's up...which, at this rate, will probably be some time next year.